Tuesday, April 25, 2017

PCG Loves McCarthyism

When it comes to politics PCG's 1% leans far to the right. They do not like the left. But their disdain for the left has led PCG's 1% to demonize the left as socialists and communists in order to scare their audience away from the left. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 one would have thought that it would be much harder to make people scared of the left by accusing them of being Communists yet that is exactly what PCG's 1% has been trying to do. This tendency may be seen in a recent article released by PCG. (Joel Hilliker, How Did Socialism Become So Popular in America?, April 24, 2017.)

Let's take a look.

America is a nation “conceived in liberty”—like no other nation in history! For hundreds of years, people from all over the world have come here for freedom: religious freedom, economic freedom, freedom of opportunity.

But something is destroying America’s unique liberty.

What would that be?

How is it that more and more Americans—especially younger Americans—are embracing socialism and communism? These ideologies are very different from those established by America’s founders. They are economic and political models that make this nation more and more like other nations—in Europe and elsewhere—and less and less like America.

And who are these Americans he condemn for promoting socialism and communism? As we shall later in this article Hilliker will criticize Senator Sanders, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, the "political left" and "the leaders in the Democratic Party today." In other words he has turned "socialism" and "communism" to mean the American left in general. That is a classic McCarthyite tactic: Slurring the American left in general as Communists in order to hurl the guilt of the atrocities committed by Lenin, Stalin and other like minded dictators onto the American left to silence debate.

Also note the odd disdain for being like Europe. Even though western European nations have been close allies of the United States since the World War II era it seems that PCG's leaders look down on them and do not want to live in a society like theirs'.

During the Cold War, there was a lot of fear in America about the spread of communism. Now, most Americans today have come to think that threat was overblown. But just look at how widespread and mainstream socialist ideas have become in America today.

There was indeed "a lot of fear ... about the spread of communism." It is generally called McCarthyism. It was not merely an attack on Communists. Rather it was directed at many peoples and dissidents who had nothing to do with Communism including many who were innocent of any wrongdoing. It caused many innocent people to suffer and have their reputations ruined for no good reason. The guilt of the atrocities in Communist countries was hurled onto people who had nothing to do with those things. Senator McCarthy made the hysterical accusation that the State Department was infiltrated by many Communists. People were stirred up into chasing after ghosts. It is shameful that PCG should try to rehabilitate that campaign of hysteria that hurt so many innocent people.

In the 2016 presidential campaign, an open socialist almost won the Democratic Party nomination! If Americans under the age of 30 were the only ones who voted, this man would now be president of the United States. His radical plans to multiply the power and size of government are still extremely popular. More and more Americans want the national government to run health care and other major sectors of the economy.

Perhaps a lot of those young Americans want every American to have health insurance. That would be such a good thing. All Americans deserve to have health insurance.

Hilliker complains that Senator Sanders' plans (actually proposals since he did not win the primary elections) happens to be "extremely popular." But instead of wondering why it is like that he retreats to simple assertions that they were manipulated by Communists, the Universities and the political left instead of accepting the fact that many people do not view politics the same way as himself.

Is it possible all that concern over Communist infiltration might have been justified? This might sound like a kooky conspiracy theory...

It is "a kooky conspiracy theory" to demonize the American left as Communists. It is also an attempt to shut down debate within his audience and scare off people in his audience from listening to sources of information outside of PCG's information bubble.

We now continue with Hilliker's article.

...but you don’t have to look hard to find evidence that communism is influencing America today! The political left is actually pretty open in advocating Communist policies!

Note how "the political left" is equated with "advocating Communist policies." In other words this article is a condemnation of the left in general. The words "Socialist" and "Communist" are here rendered as almost meaningless synonyms for "the political left."

When you look at the leaders in the Democratic Party today, they got their education from universities that were heavily influenced by Communist thinkers.

In other words Hilliker's condemnation of Socialists and Communists includes "the leaders in the Democratic Party today." Once again we see that he has rendered the words "Socialist" and "Communist" are here rendered as almost meaningless synonyms for "the political left."

The Communist Party U.S.A. enlisted the support of thousands of sympathetic professors. Documents from Soviet archives reveal that even after the Soviet Union collapsed, the Communist Party U.S.A. received 2 to 3 million dollars a year from the Kremlin.

And what happened to the leaders of the Soviet Union? It collapsed in 1991 and splintered into numerous nation states.

He also labels Barack Obama as being part of this alleged Communist threat because of meeting with certain people when he was a young man instead of judging him by what he did when he had power.

Former U.S. President Barack Obama was influenced as a youth by Frank Marshall Davis, a card-carrying Communist Party member, a man who openly supported Joseph Stalin, and who said the world’s greatest threat was “Anglo-American imperialist domination.” Mr. Obama wrote in his biography that he attended socialist conferences and hung out with Marxist professors.

Hilliker insists that the Communists tried to infiltrate the Democratic Party to reforged it according to the wishes of Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama. Note how the Communists are portrayed as being aligned with Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama once again showing that he has twisted the words "Socialist" and "Communist" to mean the left in general.

There is a lot of evidence exposing the Communists’ deliberate effort to get inside the Democratic Party. Like Paul Kengor wrote, they wanted to transform it “from the party of Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy to the party of Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama.”

He also does not even mention where this quotation came from.

He then dares to minimize what President Nixon did during the Watergate scandal and portrays him as a victim of "the radical left" for combating the influence of Communists.

A book published in 2015 titled The Real Watergate Scandal documents how President Richard Nixon worked to prevent this from happening. He was part of the effort to convict Alger Hiss, a Communist spy who worked in the U.S. State Department. For that, Nixon became a target among those on the radical left. History shows that the way Nixon was prosecuted involved law-breaking and lawlessness far more scandalous than what he himself had to resign the presidency over.

PCG's 1% have tended to be intensely partisan towards the right. This is one reason why Hilliker is willing to minimize what Nixon did since he happened to be right wing.

He then simplistically slur young Americans as hating Nixon, Truman, Madison and Washington's political stances.

But today, the dominant message, especially among younger Americans, is to hate what Nixon or even Truman or even Madison or Washington stood for—and to embrace the enlightened principles of Obama, Sanders, Davis, Engels and Marx.

He bemoans that many Americans do not view the world politically the way he does.

Americans today are not living in the nation of our Founding Fathers, or even of our own fathers. The ideas that many Americans are embracing are more radical than a lot of people realize.

But even though he and his followers in PCG and his core audience are already mainly right wing and largely opposed to the left and the Democratic Party almost by default but that still is not enough for Hilliker. He then makes the wild accusation that the left are plotting to "bring... down" America,

And we didn’t arrive at this moment just spontaneously coming to recognize the wisdom in socialist and Communist thinking.

The fact that these ideas have become so popular is the result of a deliberate and amazingly successful strategy—that was aimed at bringing down “the land of the free, and the home of the brave.”

What a potent cocktail of McCarthyite paranoia, fear, demonization and narrow minded parochialism this article is. The spirit of McCarthyism is alive and well in the offices of PCG headquarters. No good can come from this.

3 comments:

You are quite right. I sent this letter to the Letters to the Editor section in March, which no doubt won't get published, but in it I wrote:

=== quote ===Is God Republican?

When reading The Trumpet one could easily get the impression that God is a Republican. You fail to realize the core issue at stake in the world of politics because you have allowed yourselves to be blinded by your own views on issues such as marriages and divorces, homosexuality and health.

Most observers will have noted that both candidates for the Presidency offered revisions of ObamaCare, but Trump is the only one to talk so derogatively about everything relating to the Democrats in an effort to create a world view that is black and white - with no grey tones whatsoever.

Just as Gal 3:28 talks about both national and gender being a human standard - not any lasting standard - so you may be failing in exactly the same way as scribes and Pharisees did when they had 'their turn of the century' to use a metaphor for the necessity to upgrade attitudes and beliefs. It probably won't reach the Letters section because of your fear of beng corrected by outsiders, but you are placing naïve trust in a man when you put positive etiquettes on a man such as Donald J Trump, and you are bound to be very quickly shaken up when his focus shifts around as it has already done in the first 100 days. === end of quote ===

If You are new please read this

Hand in Hand for Syria

Keep Somalia's Remittances Open

I encourage readers to sign this petition from Oxfam calling upon the U.S. government to let the Somali diaspora continue to send remittance to their loved ones in Somalia.

Moves have been made to shut down such remittances from Somalis in America. Many Somalis need these remittances. The remittances to Somalia are larger than foreign aid contributions and are a lifeline to these people caught in trouble and turmoil.

It is true that HWA said that some Eastern European states would break away from Moscow's orbit and join the European Empire he said would arise at any moment. But he never talked of the Soviet Union collapsing. He did not teach that. Also he portrayed the rise of the European Empire to be far quicker then what has actually happened. In Mystery of the Ages Christ was supposed to return by 2005 at the most.

So assertions that the fall of the Berlin Wall somehow prove that HWA was right is just complete nonsense spread by people who, for whatever reason, are still in denial that HWA was a false prophet who merely talked out of his own "human reasoning".

Truth about Roderick C. Meredith

What sort of man is he? A man who could say things like this.

"Mr. Armstrong has reminded us again that we are to disfellowship any members who attend GTA's [Garner Ted Armstrong's] campaigns, church services or other meetings. Some of our weaker members apparently do not realize that this man is in direct rebellion against God and His government! We must not allow them, or ourselves, to rationalize about this matter, to try to "help the underdog," or in any other way lend support to one whose gross immorality, whose long standing "play acting" and hypocrisy, and whose direct insubordination to the Government of God has long been and is now a source of confusion and DIVISION among God's people. So, as per Mr. Armstrong's instruction, I charge and exhort every one of you faithful ministers of the living Christ to explain this in no uncertain terms to your members, to warn them about this cause of division and then to disfellowship any who consort with GTA or any of his fellows." (Roderick C. Meredith, Pastor's Report, May 21, 1979, pp. 1-2.)

David Robinson on Roderick C. Meredith

"During the ten years I have been an employee of the Worldwide Church, you have been poorly spoken of by most of the ministers and employees I have known. I vividly remember the absolute unbounded glee that was openly expressed by a good number of respected men in the church when you were first "shanghaied." [In 1972.] I could begin by naming names, which I am sure would shock you. I was one of the few who stood, where possible, for you. Your tenure as superintendent of ministers, as I believe the office was then called, was looked on as nightmarish. While you held office during the years of growth, most of those whom I know gave you very little credit for that growth. Almost everyone whom I know, whether they be former friends of yours, or continuing foes, recalls insensitive and terrible things you have done. Without exception, at least among my acquaintances, they all credit you with an unbridled lust for power and list you as one who is willing to pay the price of gaining that power, no matter what. I have, through many of the last few years, believed you had principles you would not violate. Many a man of experience in the church assured me of my error. Events have proven me wrong and them right. Mr. Armstrong has himself been widely quoted as saying of you that you were so righteous that you were so "righteous you were unrighteous." " (David Robinson, Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web, Chapter 16, p. 207.)

Of course it is impossible for me to personally verify these assertions but people deserve to know what this knowledgeable man had to say about him.